Welcome to my worlds!

I'm James Maxey, author of fantasy and science fiction. My novels include the science fantasy Bitterwood Saga (4 books) the Dragon Apocalypse Saga (4 books), numerous superhero novels including Nobody Gets the Girl and the Lawless series, the steampunk Oz sequel Bad Wizard, and my short story collections, There is No Wheel and Jagged Gate. This website is focused exclusively on writing. At my second blog, Jawbone of an Ass, I ramble through any random topic that springs to mind, occasionally touching on religion and politics and other subjects polite people are sensible enough not to discuss in public. If you'd like to get monthly updates on new releases, as well as preview chapters and free short stories, join my newsletter!




Sunday, March 8, 2015

Dragon Apocalypse Book Four: 36,487

Not my most prolific week. Chapter 7 was a bear to get through, Chapter 8 was even worse. I'm really, really, really hoping these will be the two chapters that I come back to in the rewrite that strike me as perfect. That happens to me a lot. Chapters where I feel the flow, where everything is just coming together easily, are sometimes just painful when I get to the rewrite stage. Chapters where I slog and sweat and dribble out words can later seem brilliant. I honestly never know immediately after I've written something.

The difficulty in Chapter 8 was one of the characters just not wanting to cooperate. It's a Slate and Sorrow chapter, and I went into the book with a grand master plan on how their relationship would progress. There's one conversation they desperately need to have, and I planned for that conversation to come much, much later in the book. But, it turned out that the character wanted to hash things out in the first third of the book. I'm happy because I think the scene has the emotional weight I wanted. I'm nervous, because... what's next? This scene was supposed to be the climax of their story arc, not an opening scene. Oh well. Hopefully things will work out.

No excerpt this week. Hopefully, a nice long one next time!

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